me ple 


APEL OF THE SOUTH. CAROLINA COLLEGE, 


~ JUNE 27rn, 1892, 


TED AT THE PRESBYTERIAN 








“WHERBWITHAL SHALL 4 YOUNG WAN CLEANSE HIS WAY?” 


BACCALAUREATE SERMON 


PREACHED IN THE CHAPEL OF THE SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE, 


JUNE 27ru, 1892, 


BY 
JAMES WOODROW, 


PRESIDENT. 


PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF THE BOARD OF 
TRUSTEES. 


COLUMBIA, S. C. 
PRINTED AT THE PRESBYTERIAN PUBLISHING HOUSE. 


1892. 





<a a his. 
eae: adem 
ws phe. di ana ie ome 
rare 
me : , f 
* iets 1 a 
Bpigiize ie the ee 
by in 2022 with funding from | 
Duke University Libraries 
¥ = eq : 
te : 


https://archive.org/details/wherewithalshallO0wood ad 


/ : ah 
: z . 


“WHEREWITHAL SHALL A YOUNG MAN CLEANSE 
HIS WAY?” 





—-—~<er- 


_ A few years ago, my young friends, you left your homes, 
where you had been nurtured and guarded by the love and care 
of your fathers and mothers—you left those homes to come to form 
part of this community, which is in many ways only a larger 
family living in a somewhat different home. In the earlier one, 
a mother’s hand, moving in obedience to a mother’s heart, pro- 
vided for your wants, soothed your sorrows, and guided your feet 
in the pathway of virtue and truth; the strength and wisdom, 
the good counsel and admonitions, of a father were always yours 
to protect you from harm from ‘without and to keep you from 
straying from right ways. Here, though deprived of this loving 
tenderness and watchful guidance, you placed yourselves under 
the care of those who have daily felt in you only less than a 
parent’s interest and desire for your welfare, and who have been 
ready, not merely to aid you in the training of your minds and 
in-the gaining of knowledge, but in that which is so much bet- 
ter—to become good, upright, pure, honorable men. 

And now you are about to leave this second home. When 
leaving the first, you must have looked forward with some appre- 
hension, as you could not know how well the second might de- 
serve the name, so often given it, of bountiful fostering mother. 
You could not see the arms open to receive you, the safeguards 
to be thrown around you, the warm friendships you would form 
with those whom you would meet, so that brotherhood is by no 
means too strong a word to describe your relationship with many 
of your companions. But now, after having for a few years en- 
joyed all these, and being again about to leave your companions 
and friends, those who love you and have ever been ready to help 
you, it would not be strange if you should look out into the world 
you are about to enter with misgiving and even with fear. You 
have heard that that world is cold, and selfish, and hard; that 


4 


on every side you will be beset by those who will strive to injure 
and, still worse. to corrupt you; and you know that you must 
face all difficulties and dangers alone. You have now reached 
the coveted rank of men, and in this you no doubt rejoice. » You 
are no longer to be under the direction or control of others; you 
will be independent. and will choose for yourselves the paths you 
are to pursue. And it is not inconsistent with profound grati- 
tude for parental care and for that which is only second to it, 
hot inconsistent with true loyalty to the past, that you rejoice 
that you have reached that stage in life when you are to act for 
yourselves, and that henceforth, instead of being subject to the 
authoritative guidance of others, you will’ choose your guides for 
yourselves. You will still have guides; for no sane man ean 
imagine it possible to find his own way through a world covered 
over with a labyrinthine net work of paths leading in every con- 
ceivable direction. Your independence wiil consist, not in hay- 
ing no guides, but in having sole power to choose your guides. 
And with this power comes the resyonsibility. 

May it not be profitable, then, to pause on the threshold where 
you stand, and seek to choose wisely who and what shall be the 
guides of your pathway through life? 

Besides the reason | have just hinted at why we need guides— 
that we are too ignorant to recognise the paths which lead in the 
directions in which we wish to go—there is another which is 
even more important: that is, that we are not fit to guide our- 
selves even when we know the right way. We need some one 
to control us as well as give us the needed knowledge. He knows 
little of himself who does not know this to be true. All men 
unite in asserting it, the heathen philosopher and poet as earnest- 
ly as the apostle of Christ. If a Paul has said, That which I 
do I allow not; for what I would, that do I not: but what I hate, 
that do I’—an Ovid has said, “I see and approve the better 
things: I follow the worse.’ Hence our need of a guide to lead 
as well as to point out the way. 

It is not enough to cause us to avoid them, to know where the 
miry ways are; we need to be inspired with the desire to walk 
only in the clean paths. The good, the right, is constantly 


5 


spoken of as the pure, the clean. the untarnished and untainted, 
the spotless, the stainless; while the evil, the wrong, the base, 
is called impure, corrupt, unclean, polluted. Since, then, you 
find in yourselves a tendency to do wrong, and since you know 
there is so much in the world to tempt you from the right—cor- 
ruption within, temptation without—the most important question 
that you, my young friends, can possibly ask at this moment is, 
*Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way ?” 

Now, is this question merely a despairing ery, forced from you 
by a sight of the dangers before you, but without any expectation 
that a helpful answer will be heard? Often in the face of impend- 
ing peril, in view of the approach of what we look upon as terrible 
calamity, we utter such a cry, calling for help, though we may 
well know that no help will come—that the dreaded blow must fall. 
Or may we-hope fur an answer on which we may with confidence 
rely; which will bring us to a guide ready and able to conduct 
us at every moment in the right path—at once freeing us trom 
all inward tendency and desire to go astray, and rendering power- 
less all outward temptation that would turn us from the clean 
pure way? Thank God, we have such an answer; suggested 
in counexion with the question when it was written long ago, 
*Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?’ That an- 
swer is, ‘By TAKING HEED THERETO ACCORDING TO THY WORD.” 
Ps.exix. 9. 

But what and whose word is this of which so positive a state- 
ment is made, and on which we are thus called to rely with such 
implicit confidence? Is it the word of some erring mortal like 
ourselves, which is likely to be sometimes wrong even though 
generally right? No, it is the word of God; not of an ‘‘un- 
known God,” such as the learned Athenians ignorantly wor- 
shipped of old; but of the almighty personal God, who created 
the heavens and the earth; who created man in his own im- 
age, forming him of the dust of the ground, breathing into 
him the breath of life, and causing him to become a living soul ; 
for whom he has every moment since manifested his care; for 
his sake sparing not even his only-begotten and well-beloved 
Son; yes, it is the word of God, who is the God and Father of 


6 


our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ: and who at sundry times 
and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers 
by the prophets, and hath in these last days spoken unto us by 
his Son; it is the word of this God, thus spoken, and through 
his goodness transmitted to us. If you examine this word, with 
open and candid minds, subjecting it to every test by which 
truth is distinguished from falsehood, you will most assuredly 
find it true in every syllable, wholly free from error, the very 
word of the Lord God of truth and righteousness; and there- 
fore a guide on which you may most securely rest. 

Should anything more be needed, I might safely appeal not 
merely to your limited experience and observation, but to the 
experience and observation of all men, in all ages, the world over. 
In many of your studies here, you have been encouraged to sub- 
mit to experimental proof the principles taught you; you have 
tried the experiments yourselves, and you have listened to the 
trustworthy testimony of those who had done likewise; and if 
the results always, without exception, corresponded with the pre- 
dictions, you no longer had the slightest doubt of their truth. 
Now, with many years of experience and observation, I testify 
to-night that no man whom I have known or of whom I have 
ever heard has taken heed to his way according to God's word, 
whose way was not thereby made spotlessly clean. Iam sure 
that with your briefer experience you are ready to bear the same 
testimony. And no man ever lived, whatever his opinion of this 
word in, other respects, who could truthfully bear any other. 
Where the way has not been cleansed, where there has been 
corruption, impurity. vileness of any kind, it has been where 
heed thereto was not taken according to this precious cleansing 
word. 

Let us now look at some of the methods by which this word 
produces its cleansing effects; or, in other words, leads to holiness 
in character and life. 

We have already seen that in order to do right, it is not enough 
to know what 7s right. Yet, while it is not enough, it is never- 
theless necessary. We learn here, then, first of all, that God 
himself is the standard of right, and that in us obedience to his 


7 


will and conformity to his image constitute the right. He created 
our first parents in his own image; and the restoration of that 
image in us embraces and involves all else that is desirable. We 
are to “put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge 
after the image of him that created him.”” Through the “‘exceed- 
ing great and precious promises” “given unto us,’ we may be 
‘‘partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption 
that is in the world through lust.’’ We are to be ‘‘perfect, even 
as our Father which is in heaven is perfect.’’ ‘Let your heart 
therefore be perfect with the Lord our God, to walk in his stat- 
utes, and to keep his commandments.” 

Having taught us that perfection with the Lord our God is to 
walk in his statutes and to keep his commandments, we ask our 
guide what these are and receive as the all-comprebending reply. 
“What doth the Lord thy God require of thee but to fear the 
Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to 
serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul. 
to keep the commandments of the Lord, and his statutes, which 
I command thee this day for thy good?” This, first given us 
by the mouth of Moses, is repeated by Him who is greater than 
Moses, when asked, ‘‘Master, which is the great commandment?” 
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with 
all thy soul, and with all thy mind; this is the first and great 
commandment.” And then he adds, ‘And the second is like 
unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two 
commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” 

But our guide does not leave us with these general rules. It 
goes on to tell us what is involved in these two great commands. 
Tt gives us the Ten Commandments and explains and illustrates 
these in numberless ways to show us more particularly the paths 
in which we should walk. 

First, then, our love to God, the place he holds in our hearts. 
must be supreme; he isa jealous God—he will suffer no rival 
on the throne of our affections. 

Next, in the expression of our love and adoration, in our wor- 
ship, we are not to use methods of our own devising, but to con- 
fine ourselves strictly to the modes he has prescribed. ‘‘Behold, 


8 


to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of 
rams.’ In vain will be our worship, if we teach or accept for 
doctrines the commandments of men. 

Then our way cannot be clean if we fail profoundly to rever- 
ence and honor the Lord our God, if we take his name in vain, 
or profane in any way his titles, word, or works, or anything 
whereby he maketh himself known. Possibly we may think 
lightly of this sin, attributing it to thoughtlessness, committed 
without any intention of wrong-doing; but so God does not re- 
gard it; the All-Powerful Judge not merely does not look upon 
it as consistent with love to himself, but says with emphasis that 
He “will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.” 

It is next pointed out to us that while all our time is to be 
spent in pure and holy acts, yet one day in seven is to be devoted 
more especially to the worship of God and communion with him, 
and to deeds of love and merey to our fellow-men. ‘To this end, 
while it is our imperative duty to labor diligently six days of the 
seven, we are under special obligation to abstain from our ordi- 
nary employments and pursuits on the seventh, that we may 
spend it in the services which the Lord of the Sabbath hath as- 
signed us. 

Having thus warned us against violations of the first and great 
commandment, the word puts us on our guard also against the 
transgressions of the second, to which the Omniscient Eye sees 
we are prone. 

You are now near an age at which you will no longer be under 
the legal control of father and mother; but the day will never 
come when you will not owe love and honor to those who so ea- 
gerly welcomed you at your birth. ‘The frivolous, foolish, light- 
minded youth sometimes forgets this; but the guiding word is at 
hand to recall him from his ingratitude by this first. command- 
ment with promise. 

As the youth mingles day by day with his fellow-men, he is 
sure not infrequently to meet with those who disregard his rights, 
it may be with some who offer him insult or do him wanton 
injury, or in other ways excite him to flaming anger. Tempted 
by his unrestrained passion to avenge himself, he attacks the 


9 


offender, he is ready even to take his life. His monitor's voice 
may then be heard, ‘Thou shalt not kill.” ‘*Avenge not your- 
selves, but rather give place unto wrath.” “Say not thou, I will 
recompense evil; but wait on the Lord, and He shall save thee.” 
Tt goes further, and warns against the cause of murder. You are 
told that hatred, malice, desire for revenge, lead to murder; that 
in the sight of God they are murder. Let this advice be heeded, 
and murder, in thought as well as in the shedding of blood, must 
disappear from the earth: ‘Let all bitterness, and wrath, and 
anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, 
with all malice; and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, 
forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath for- 
given you.” 

But besides the temptations which assail the young man, incit- 
ing him to anger and unrestrained wrath, to murder in thought 
if not in deed, there are others which beset him on every side, 
seeking to entice him from the paths of purity by every alluring 
promise, inflaming him by the prospect of unholy pleasures to 
walk in-forbidden ways, while skilfully concealing the death in 
which they end. Against these the guide utters precept after 
precept, warning after warning, in tones of entreaty and expos- 
tulation that surely the most insensible must hear. The folly, 
the danger, the sin are shown ; woe to him who hears and heeds 
not; who, void of understanding, listens to the stranger with 
flattering words, forsaking the guide of the youth; who enters 
the house that inclineth unto death, and paths that descend unto 
the dead ; who goes, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool 
to the correction of the stocks; deaf to the warning that they are 
in the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death; not 
knowing that the dead are there, and that they are amongst 
guests who are in the depths of hell. Nor are the warnings 
given against outward acts alone, but the youth is also cautioned 
against the wanton look, imagination, or desire; so earnestly, 
that he is urged, if his right eye do cause him to offend, to pluck 
it out and cast it from him; for the reason that it is better to 
enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than having two 
eyes to be cast into hell fire. 


10 


In taking your places amongst men, no longer to be directly 
dependent upon others for your support, you expect to seek, with 
other good things, the possession of property ; by your labor and 
skill, you look forward to making your own living by engaging 
in some kind of business, and even to accumulate wealth, if you 
can. And the word I am commending to you as your guide does 
not forbid nor discourage such desires; it encourages them in- 
stead, and shows how they may most effectively be realised. It 
describes riches as a good—not the highest, by any means—but 
still a good; and then it tells how they may be gained—namely, 
by diligence, industry, thrift. The hand of the diligent maketh 
rich. He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread. In 
all labor there is profit. Seest thuu a man diligent in his busi- 
ness? He shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before 
mean men. We command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ 
that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread. 

Then as a rule to control us in our gains as part of that which 
bids love to our neighbors as ourselves, it gives us this: ‘Thou 
shalt not steal.” Possibly we may at first be inclined to resent 
the giving of such a rule to us. But let us remember that this 
commandment, like all the others, is exceeding broad. It does 
not merely forbid one’s being a vulgar thief; but it forbids our 
doing anything and everything that directly or indirectly inter- 
feres with the rights of our neighbors or in any way regards 
them as less sacred than our own. It forbids not merely embez- 
zlement, the gaining of money by false pretences, fraud, cheat- 
ing, gaming, taking advantage of others, but also all misappro- 
priation or waste of the money of others, whether those others are 
private persons, corporations, or the State. It requires the most 
scrupulous integrity. It requires the payment of debts, and the 
prompt payment of them. It requires a strict observance of all 
contracts in their true meaning. It requires perfect honesty and 
uprightness in the sight of men and of God who sees and knows 
our inmost thoughts. By taking heed to these requirements, the 
young man will effectually cleanse his way in respect to all these 
things. 

But there are still other directions in which protection from 


tt 


defilement is needed. There is one evil to which the corrupt 
heart is especially prone, which combines with all others, which 
towers above most others in its, enormity, and of which God ex- 
presses his peculiar abhorrence. It is the sin of falsehood. Temp- 
tations to commit most other sins are not constantly assailing 
you; you are hardly ever free for a moment from temptation to 
commit this one. Bearing false witness against our neighbor is 
the form of it mentioned in the ‘Ten Words; but this includes 
every form. That against which we are warned is falsehood, 
deceit, lying, hypocrisy, misrepresentation, dissimulation, per- 
jury—all and every departure from perfect and absolute truth. 
Now, the word to which the young man is inyited to take heed, 
is full of incentives of every kind to lead him to hate and avoid 
the false, to love and practise the true. It declares that lying 
lips are an abomination to the Lord; that the Lord hates the 
lying tongue; that all liars have their part in the lake which 
burneth with fire and brimstone; that into the holy city, the New 
Jerusalem, there shall in no wise enter anything that maketh a 
lie; that without are dogs, and whosoever loveth and maketh a 
lie. It sets forth not only God's hatred and detestation of lying, 
but that which is felt also. by all good men. Then on the other 
hand it holds up to view the beauty and attractiveness of truth, 
and exalts the character of him who speaks the truth. This is 
the answer to the question, ‘-Lord, who shall abide in thy taber- 
nacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?’ ‘He that speaketh 
the truth in his heart; he that sweareth to his own hurt, and 
changeth not. He that doeth these things shall never be moved.” 
And “they that deal truly are his delight.” 

What a changed world would this be if the truth and nothing 
but the truth were spoken; if slander, detraction, malicious gos- 
sip, evil-speaking of every kind, were unknown. How far can 
you rely on the representations of the seller of property as to its 
real value and its defects? How many buyers are there whé 
say. It is naught, it is naught; but who when they have gone 
away, utter their boastings? How far can you trust the state- 
ments even of one who professes to be contending for the truth 
of God, when he formulates the creed and describes the practices 


12 


of an antagonist? How much have we a right to believe of the 
assertions of a political partisan respecting the principles of the 
other party, the character and aims of the other candidate, the 
probable result of the coming election? How can we learn the 
number of soldiers engaged in certain battles and wars’ So we 
might go over the whole range of human affairs, and ask, Where 
ean truth be found? The world is covered with wrecks result- 
ing from broken promises, deceit, falsehood, and treachery. 

The tenth utterance in that part of the word we are consider- 
ing, to which the young man does well to take heed, specifically 
forbids an unlawful desire for that to which we have no right; 
but it is based on the broader thought which the Lord Jesus 
Christ, himself the divine Word, so fully brought to view in his 
teachings while on earth. It is the state of the heart that deter- 
mines the outward act; and even if not followed by the outward 
evil act is itself sin—uncleanness. Out of the abundance of the 
heart the mouth speaketh. ‘The unlawful desire leads to murder, 
to theft, to impurity, to lying; it leads away from the love of 
God. Asa man thinketh in his heart, so is he. 

In seeking to cleanse our way, therefore, it is not enough to 
consider the stream; we must more earnestly strive to secure 
purity at the source, the fountain head. As is the source, such 
will be the stream ; as is the heart, such will be the life. 

As we saw at the outset, it is not enough for us to know the 
right; we must also have the desire and the will and the power 
to do it. But here, unhappily, we find by looking into our 
hearts, that, while in a general way we think we would always 
prefer doing right, we are ever ready, when the special tempta- 
tion presents itself, to yield and to do what we know to be wrong. 
The explanation of this sad fact is also given us in this precious 
word. The heart, the mind, by nature is enmity against God ; 
for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 
Here is the disease ; the same word tells us of the remedy. The 
heart must be renewed; we must be born again. The prayer is 
set before us, that we may adopt it as our own: ‘Create in mea 
clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”’ This 
prayer cannot be offered in vain. ‘The Hearer of Prayer says: 


13 


“T will give them an heart, and I will put a new spirit: within 
them; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will 
give them an heart of flesh.” The effect and object of this gift, 
of this new creation, is thus stated: “That they may walk in my 
statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them; and they shall 
be my people, and I will be their God.” The new birth that we 
need, the new creation, the quickening that we must have who 
are dead in sins, is given us ‘through Christ Jesus our Lord; 
we are ‘“‘quickened together through him.” 

And here is another part of the cleansing brought to our view. 
Even if we should now know perfectly the will of God, and should 
with a new heart and new spirit keep all his commandments, 
should thus preserve our way clean according to his word, we 
cannot forget that it is already defiled. Now comes to us the 
glorious revelation from this same word that Jesus Christ took 
on himself our nature that he might suffer and die in our stead, 
and thus cleanse us from all sin. Here is offered us the com- 
plete cleansing we need—from the guilt of sin and from its 
power—that through the ‘‘blood of Christ, who through the eter- 
nal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, our consciences 
may be purged from dead works to serve the living God.” 

I have now pointed out to you, my young friends, the answer 
which God gives in his own word to your anxious question as to 
your way through life, as you are about to enter on its higher 
activities. If you choose a way so guided and directed, you will 
find it to be full of pleasantness and peace and happiness. What- 
ever afflictions may come upon you, whatever trials and persecu- 
tions may be your lot, if only you are walking in wisdom’s ways, 
happiness, the truest, highest, most constant happiness, will every 
moment be yours, even when suffering the most. 

Then see whither it leads. However it may appear to our 
imperfect sight, its course is continually onward and upward; it 
ends at the open doors of glory, at the gates of the New Jerusa- 
lem, the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ, where to all who have walked therein an entrance shall 
be abundantly ministered. 


14 


And now, permit me to entreat you, by my increasing interest 
in you and affection for you, by the goodness and merey of God, 
by the love and sacrifice of’ our Lord Jesus Christ, to decide to- 
night, if you have not already done so, that for the cleansing 
of your way, you will take heed thereto according to God’s holy 
word, is 

May the Holy Spirit graciously incline and enable each and 
every one of you so to do. 








